Since 1985, in various formats, SLANT -- an independent voice based in Richmond's Fan District -- has offered its readers original commentary on politics and popular culture, including cartoons and selected sundries. Warning: Sometimes that means satirical content. All rights are reserved.

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Sign of the Times

One summer afternoon in the
mid-1970s, I was walking about 20 yards behind a guy heading east on the
800 block of West Grace Street. Then, like it was his, he casually
picked up the Organic Food Store’s hand-painted sandwich board style
sign from the sidewalk in front of the store.

Without even looking around for any witnesses to his act of dishonesty the sign thief kept going at the same pace.

As I
walked faster to close the distance between us we continued down the red
brick sidewalk. By the time we had passed the Biograph Theatre, where I
worked, I had sized him up and decided what I would do. He was a
big-haired hippie, 18 to 20 years old; he could have been a student. Or,
he might have been a traveling panhandler/opportunist. In those days
there were plenty of both in the neighborhood.

Passing by Sally
Bell’s Kitchen, in the 700 block, I was within six or seven yards of him
when I spoke the lines I had written for myself while walking. My tone
was resolute, my voice clear: “Hey, I saw you steal the sign. Don’t turn
around … just put it down and walk away.”

The thief’s body
language announced that he had heard me, but he didn’t turn around.
Instead he walked faster, with the sign under his right arm, holding the
weight with his hand.

Moving closer to him, I said with more force: “Put the sign down. The cops are on the way. Walk away while you still can.”

Without
further ado the wooden sign clattered onto the sidewalk. The sign thief
kept going without looking back. As I gathered my neighbor’s property I
watched the fleeing hippie break into a sprint, cross Grace Street and
disappear going toward Monroe Park at the next corner.

Then I carried the recovered property back to the store, which was a
few doors west of the Biograph. Obviously, I don’t really remember
exactly what I said to the thief over three decades ago, verbatim, but that
was a faithful recounting of the events.

What I had done came in part from a young man’s sense of righteous indignation, together
with the spirit of camaraderie that existed among some of the
neighborhood’s merchants in that time. There were several of us, then in
our mid-to-late-20s, who were running businesses on that bohemian strip — bars,
retail shops, etc. We were friends and we watched out for one another.

Now
I’m amazed that I used to do such things. My tough guy performance had
lasted less than a minute. The character I invented was drawn somewhat from
Humphrey Bogart, with as much Robert Mitchum as I could muster. Hey, the
thief must have felt lucky to get away.

Who knows? Maybe he’s still telling this same story, too, but from another angle.

This
much I know — that quirky pop scene on Grace Street in those days was a
goldmine of offbeat stories. Chelf’s Drug Store was at the corner
of Grace and Shafer. With its antique soda fountain and a few booths,
it had been a hangout for magazine-reading, alienated art students since
the late-1940s. It seemed frozen in time.

The original Village
Restaurant, a block west of Chelf’s, was a legendary beatnik watering
hole, going back to the 1950s. Writer Tom Robbins and artist William
Fletcher “Bill” Jones (1930-‘98) hung out there. Strangely, that
location has remained boarded up for decades, while the new Village still goes
on across Harrison Street. That same neighborhood was also home to
cartoon-like characters such as the wandering Flashlight Lady and the
Grace Street Midget.

During the late-‘60s the hippies had come on
strong to replace the beats, as the strip went psychedelic, seemingly
overnight. But by the mid-‘70s the hippie blue jean culture had peaked.
It was about to be replaced by the black leather of Punk Rock and
polyester of the Disco scene. All-night dance clubs became popular.

So,
by the late-‘70s the mood on the strip had changed severely. Cocaine
was becoming the preferred drug of choice with the druggie in-crowd,
replacing pot. Several restaurants were serving liquor-by-the-drink, the
dives catering to the young set began having rugged bouncers at the
door.

Into the ‘80s I remember an angry, red-bearded street
beggar with a missing foot threatening to “bite a plug out” of me,
because I had had the temerity to tell him to stop bothering people in
front of the Biograph, to move on.

In that moment it was
painfully obvious to me that times had indeed changed. Wisely, I didn’t
press my case any further that day. Instead, I moved on.